Jimmy dried his hands and stepped closer, his hands settling on my thighs. "Driving me crazy."
"Is it working?" I asked, sliding my hands up his chest.
"You know it is."
I did know. And God, I loved it. This wasn't Derek demanding I dress a certain way, or Marcus critiquing my appearance, or Ryan wanting me to be more "feminine." This was Jimmy, completely undone by the sight of me in his kitchen, wanting me exactly as I was.
"Good," I said, pulling him down for a kiss that tasted like honey and promises.
By the time the bread was done — golden and crackling as Jimmy pulled it from the oven — I was pretty sure we'd both worked up an appetite for more than just food. But Jimmy outdid himself with the meal: fresh sourdough bread still warm enough that the butter melted into it, perfectly scrambledeggs with herbs from his windowsill garden, and coffee that was somehow better than anything I'd ever had.
"How do you make everything taste so good?" I asked, stealing another bite of his eggs.
"Practice," he said, but he was smiling, pleased by my obvious enjoyment. "And good ingredients. Those eggs are from a farmer's market vendor who actually named all her chickens."
I laughed. "Of course they are. You probably know her life story, too."
"Mary's a retired teacher who started raising chickens because her grandkids were afraid of them. She figured if she could teach seventh graders, she could handle a few hens."
"See? I knew it." I shook my head in amazement. "You collect people's stories."
"Don't you?"
I considered this. "I collect tactical information. Exit strategies. Structural weaknesses." I paused. "But you collect the human parts."
"Maybe that's why we work," he said quietly.
The words hung between us, heavy with possibility. We work. Not worked, past tense, but work — present, ongoing, future.
"Maybe we do," I said, and meant it.
An hour later, we were driving through the city in my truck, Jimmy taking in the neighborhoods I'd grown up in, the places that had shaped me into who I was.
"That's where I went to high school," I said, pulling over to really look at the building. "I used to sit on those steps during lunch, watching the popular kids and wondering what it would be like to fit in anywhere." I paused, surprised by the admission. "I never told anyone that before."
Jimmy was quiet for a moment, then: "Did you want to fit in?"
"I thought I did. But really, I just wanted someone to see me as more than just 'the strong girl' or 'the weird girl who could outrun the boys.' I wanted someone to see me as... me."
Jimmy looked at the building, then at me. "Their loss."
"Easy to say now," I said, turning onto a tree-lined street. "Harder to believe when you're seventeen and the guy you have a crush on tells you that you're 'too much' for him to handle."
"What was his name?"
"Kyle Reynolds. Why?"
"Just want to know who to punch if I ever meet him."
I laughed, surprised by the fierce protectiveness in his voice. "I think I can handle Kyle Reynolds."
"I know you can. Doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy it."
Something warm unfurled in my chest. Not because I needed him to fight my battles, but because he wanted to. Because in his mind, an insult to me was an insult to him.
"This is where my dad used to take me to practice driving," I said, pulling into an empty parking lot behind a defunct shopping center. "He'd sit in the passenger seat and let me figure out how to parallel park between traffic cones."
"What was he like?"
